More Hate

The latest comes from Broward County, Florida, where a publicly subsidized art show included more hate speech directed at President Bush:

The piece in question is a painting depicting President Bush being sodomized. Artist Alfred Phillips said images of an oil barrel and a man wearing a Muslim headdress in the work are part of a political statement about the United States being abused by oil companies.
Michael Friedman, the artist who complained to the county, said the painting is offensive and tasteless.
“Something snapped inside,” he said. Friedman entered a piece depicting Pope Benedict XVI with several swastikas in the background.
“Sodomy in a public forum is not, from my perspective, considered art,” he said. “I think somebody has to draw the line somewhere. I like political satire. However, that type of image … I don’t think is artistic.”

Well, you know a painting is offensive when the guy who painted the Pope with swastikas thinks it’s over the line. I’m a little puzzled, though, by what the show’s organizers considered to be a “relevant political message,” i.e., how the oil companies “abuse” the United States. That would be, I suppose, by providing petroleum products that allow us to go places, heat our homes, have offices and factories in which to work, and operate equipment so that, instead of living like the ancient Egyptians, hauling blocks of stone around with ropes, we can sit at desks and do things like operate computers. Is that how the oil companies “abuse” Americans? I suppose the idea is that without the oil companies, oil and gasoline would spring magically out of the ground (pollution-free, of course), and into our gas tanks and furnaces. For free.
Leftists are so childish that I cannot understand how anyone can take them seriously.